City Museum, The Old Town Hall

Town hall, now museum, on Market Street, Lancaster. Built 1781–83 to a design by Major Jarrett, with the cupola designed in 1782 by Thomas Harrison. The contractors were Robert Charnley (mason) and Robert Dickinson (carpenter). Extensions were added in 1871 and 1886, with alterations in 1873, all by Paley and Austin. The building transferred to the new Town Hall in Dalton Square in 1910 and opened as a museum in 1923.

The building is constructed of sandstone ashlar with a slate roof. It comprises 2 storeys above a basement. The principal facade faces east and contains 5 bays separated by engaged giant Tuscan columns. The ground floor is rusticated with a triglyph frieze above, round-arched windows with glazing bars (the ground-floor ones replacing an earlier open arcade), and a central round-arched doorway. A projecting giant tetrastyle Tuscan portico is raised on 4 steps. Above its pediment rises the cupola, which is square in plan at the base and octagonal above, featuring a clock face. A rotunda of unfluted Ionic columns sits above this, followed by a drum decorated with swags and a dome. In front of the right-hand bay, steps lead down to a cellar doorway. To the right, adjoining the main facade, are 2 lower bays beneath a cornice and parapet, with rustication on the ground floor, a round-arched window and door. These bays form a link to the later Public Library and were added in 1886 as part of an extension for the Board of Health and Police.

The south wall of the original building has 3 bays under a pediment with round-arched windows. A later 19th-century stone door surround surrounds the left-hand ground-floor opening. The west facade to New Street has 5 bays. Most ground-floor openings have been filled in except for the 2nd and 4th bays, which contain lunette windows. A stone porch supported on paired Tuscan columns was added in the centre in 1873. To the left adjoins the wing added in 1871, which has a rusticated ground floor with round-arched openings and 1st-floor windows with alternating triangular and segmental pediments. Behind a cornice and parapet is a hipped slate roof. The wing projects forward with 3 bays facing south and 4 bays facing west onto New Street. Doorways appear in the 1st and 3rd New Street bays, with an additional window between the 2nd and 3rd bays.

The interior contains barrel-vaulted cellars at basement level, originally entered by steps on each side of the portico, though only the northern flight survives. The remains of a wall with bases of mullioned windows of 17th-century type are said to be visible within a crawl-way leading under the 1886 wing to connect with the Public Library at cellar level. The ground floor originally served as a grain and butter market and was open throughout. It is now divided into a hall and 2 rooms, but 3 of the original 4 Tuscan columns, parallel with the front wall and supporting the upper floor, survive. Towards the rear is a stone staircase with an iron balustrade dating from 1873; originally a central staircase against the rear wall flanked by lock-ups occupied this space. The first floor was altered in 1873, when the old Court Room and Council Chamber were combined into one room. Three gasoliers remain in the ceiling. The north wall contains 2 adjacent chimneypieces by Gillow, probably repositioned during the 1873 alterations. The 1st floor of the 1871 rear wing contains the New Court Room, which also retains gasoliers in the ceiling. Until 1969, Barclay's Bank occupied Room 1 at the south end of the ground floor. The rear wing facing New Street was occupied by the National Westminster Bank until 1977.